


What You Did In The Dark

by kyanve



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Eye Trauma, Gen, Human Experimentation, needle warning
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-07
Updated: 2013-04-23
Packaged: 2017-11-28 12:25:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 21,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/674379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyanve/pseuds/kyanve
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What, exactly, Mukuro was up to during the Ring Battle Arc, and how he knew what Xanxus was up to for his little bit of posturing.  Multichapter, a lot of Mukuro being Mukuro; there's a few others besides the Kokuyo group that show up, but most of them are just there for a scene/chapter or so or, well, not as major.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Expanded form of the negotiations between Iemitsu and Mukuro; or, "Mukuro is a lawyering little shit".

"That shouldn't be possible. He's in the lower levels of the Vendicare."

"Well, it apparently is, and not too big of a surprise if you think about it - he's already done a few things that were supposed to be impossible with possession techniques.". And that was leaving out that he'd already left an invitation, before the other two had come back as if they were on a mission.

"All this while they've got him... That's a bit terrifying. You think he'll be able to do what we need through puppets?"

"If anybody can do it, it's him."

".... And you'd trust him? With what you'd said in your report about what he was trying to do..."

"Have I ever been wrong about something like this before? Just call it instinct and trust me on this one."

"If you say so.". 

\---------------------------

Iemitsu hadn't made it in the door before there was a warning rattle of needles off the doorframe and a pair of gleaming eyes in the dark.

"What do you want?"

"Well, I was in the area, and figured I'd see how-"

"Just cut the crap and tell us what you want."

"You two can contact Rokudou somehow."

"I don't know what you're on; he's in the Vendicare."

There was another voice in back, in the dark; a young girl, woken up by the voices. "Who-"

"Chrome. Stay back." Chikusa moved to be more directly between her and the door.

"Listen, if he can hear you… we came to negotiate - we need his help."

"Why would we help you-" Ken's snarling was cut off by something that was almost like a faint change in air pressure to the more sensitive in the room, the girl stepping forward with a hand on Chikusa's shoulder, a brief signal that had the rain user stepping aside for a frail young girl in a borrowed shirt, hospital patch still covering her right eye. 'She' gave a slight glance to the side, which Chikusa answered with glance out the windows and a faint nod; a shape up on the rooftop of another part of the Kokuyo complex, likely a sniper in case things went badly.

'Chrome' pulled a chair in front of the windows, giving a slightly more obvious look at the perch before sitting down in the simple auditorium chair, back to the windows.

"I suppose we have nothing to lose in humoring you to hear you out for now."

Iemitsu had followed that look, and shifted uncomfortably, a frown flickering across his face briefly. "Rokudou Mukuro.", he nodded in acknowledgment.

"So what is it that you want from us, _Vongola_?"

"There's a succession conflict; in order for Tsuna to have a chance to pass it, he needs a Mist Guardian for the challenge." 

Mukuro's smirk spread a little more insufferably amused. "And you want me at your son's back for this?" 

That got a twinge across Iemitsu's composure that needed a second to school back. "We don't really have any other options that aren't already under the control of the other side, and even if we did, you might be the only one actually capable of this; Xanxus's Mist Guardian is one of the most powerful illusionists in the underworld." 

Tactically smart, that; it indicated their nebulous internal enemy was playing information control, blinding them, nevermind who had the advantage in the general power struggle if they were getting away with it. "And if this challenge is won, then they can get in the deathblow to take over." 'His' eye dropped from Iemitsu to studying Chrome's fingernails. "Why, exactly, should I care who's in control of your Mafia? It's more Mafia either way, and the death of the ones behind us ending up in the Vendicare, at that." While he didn't shift posture, the eye flicked back up. "Or do you want me to believe it was purely accidental that there were medics and other agents and support waiting just outside our fences when Tsunayoshi came after me, hiding in fear while you sent a group of children to fight your battle for you?"

That was a good count of three, there. "Tsuna's been asking about all of you, and because of that and requests made by Reborn, there's already an indefinite stay of execution on your behalf. If you help us with this, we might even be able to negotiate a release eventually."

The one visible eyebrow arched; this wasn't Iemitsu's idea at all, it was Reborn acting on Tsuna's behalf. "So you're offering protection in exchange for my cooperation." Ken, to the side, gave an audible growl.

"If Xanxus wins this, the only reason that stay of execution will hold is to try and figure out what the Estraneo did, and the request to leave the others be for now will disappear with it." Iemitsu gestured to the side, towards Ken and Chikusa. "The Vendice aren't omniscient; we just haven't told them that we know where you all are." 

The growl dropped in pitch; Mukuro raised a hand, motioning at the other two to stay still. "And what would the terms be, then? We go stay where you can watch us on leashes like good little dogs?" 

Iemitsu shifted his weight, not moving from where he stood. "You'd be under Tsuna's authority, and for the time being, if Tsuna's not making direct orders, it's currenly up to Reborn to interpret what he wants. Reborn's terms are that, so long as you provide assistance when needed as fitting the Mist Guardian's post, you get to set any other terms." 

Mukuro smiled; Iemitsu was just the messenger, and didn't like it. "Are there any restrictions on these terms I might set?"

"…No." 

Definitely just the messenger.

Ken's disbelieving grumble was clearly meant only for Mukuro, but audible anyway. "You're not seriously thinking of agreeing to this, are you?"

There was a faint shrug to the 'girl's' shoulders as the only answer to Ken. "Kokuyo is left alone. No surveillance, no observation, no agent of yours within five miles for any purpose other than if you need to contact us or at our request; any communication is to be done via the Sun Arcabaleno or walking up to the front gate directly and waiting to be acknowledged. Ken, Chikusa, and Chrome are to be placed under protection, off-limits to any harassment that the Vongola have the authority to prevent, and any acts of self-defense or attacks on hostile elements are to be treated as such and left alone. Chrome is to be treated as interchangeable with myself for all intents and purposes, including those involving any benefit from this arrangement. I am to be given full independence and discretion on how to approach my side of the agreement, with no oversight, questioning, or expectation of reports; information I might uncover is to be shared at my discretion and times and manners of my choosing. I contact you, you do not contact me. Anyone affiliated with me at all, now or in the future, is to be left alone similarly, and neither questioned nor challenged by _anyone_ of yours. Ken and Chikusa are to be treated as under guardianship, with no actual responsibility to any of this; any involvement they might have is to be purely at our discretion. In return, I will treat Tsunayoshi as under my protection for as long as those terms are respected." 

The small flicker of an eyetic as Iemitsu was lapsing harder into a very schooled diplomatic composure only made Mukuro's smile worse. "Those terms are acceptable."

"Then I suppose I consider this an acceptable arrangement - but understand that the safety and independence of these two is my chief concern; I will ensure Tsunayoshi's safety to the best of my abilities, but if theirs is threatened, that will take priority." That there was one half of the room currently lost in silent disbelief was obvious, but Ken and Chikusa both knew not to speak up and argue, at least until the outsiders were out of the way.

"I will take personal responsibility for making sure they aren't harassed or harmed by anyone we have any control over; it will be the least I can do if you're helping Tsuna." 

Not a very impressive offer to Mukuro, but at least it was a show of good faith… and if anything happened it meant a target to make an example of, as he was sure this was being recorded and others would be aware of that wording. However, if it also reflected on the Arcabaleno, that would be something possibly worth more. "In that case, I believe it is in our best interests to accept your offer; I have less quarrel with Tsunayoshi and his tutor than anyone else, here, and I do owe them for their intervention with the Vendice." He was well aware of the Arcabaleno's offered olive branch, and curious to see how far that went.

There was a moment as tension left at least part of the room - Ken and Chikusa weren't thrilled, but were still quiet and staying out of the way; somewhere in that pause, Iemitsu had a moment of watching the two others, who were distracted from keeping an eye on him by gaping at Mukuro, Chikusa glancing sideways at him before taking an unconscious step to put Ken between himself and Iemitsu. "All right. Leave it to me. I will take guardianship of the two fugitives, Kakimoto Chikusa and Joushima Ken." 

Mukuro folded 'his' hands in 'his' lap with a faint chuckle. "I'm very curious though… all of my abilities have been taken from me. Even by borrowing this unique girl's body, I can only stay here for a short period of time." If he was going to do this, he certainly wasn't going to tip his hand at all to people that were probably being watched and might blow his ability to interfere, particularly not one that seemed to be a bit of a blunt instrument.

"…That doesn't matter. I want you to be Tsuna's Mist Guardian, Rokudou Mukuro."

A little too fast of a transition; maybe part of it was some kind of unneeded sympathy twinge, part of it desperation to settle the deal and remembering that he needed to engender goodwill; Mukuro didn't trust Iemitsu at all on this, nor did he think that 'goodwill' was a solid thing, but the head of CEDEF being here alone with one sniper did point towards truth to their story of the state of internal affairs. 

And he was holding out a half-piece of one of the famed Vongola Rings, part of the original source of the family's power.

Mukuro stood up and walked over to accept it, taking it out of Iemitsu's hand with as little actual contact with the man as possible. 'He' studied the ring, the emblem and band split neatly in half, twirled it around the tip of Chrome's finger, and held it up, running just a small amount of power through it; the flame echoed back to him amplified, an indigo shimmer over even the half-piece. It was warm to the touch, in a way that suggested more of a living thing than just absorbed heat from being in a pocket. "Is there anything else?" The one eye glanced up, a pointed hint; he'd agreed to cooperate, but that didn't mean he wanted the company.

"…No. Thank you for your assistance." Iemitsu bowed, turned, and walked out; once he was out, Mukuro looked over his shoulder to confirm that their sniper had left.

There was silence for a few minutes, leaving more than enough time for Ken to watch out the window and make sure they were alone; Mukuro-in-Chrome's body returned to the chair, sitting heavily, already starting to feel tired. He slipped the ring on Chrome's finger, testing it; it did, at least, help stabilize the possession, although he didn't want to push it too far. 

"You're really gonna go through with this?" Ken looked between Mukuro and the door, crouched next to it; Chikusa sighed, what passed for relaxing, and moved to lean against the wall.

"Right now, we don't have many options; using them as a shield might give us a chance." 'He' leaned back, Chrome's shorter frame at least enough that sinking in the chair made it easier to rest against it. "They're desperate; they can't afford to break their word right now, and in the long term, this puts me in a position to have control and influence over the great Vongola Famiglia without having to force it; I may not need to possess Sawada if I can use this position from within." Mukuro smiled faintly. "Trust me; I don't trust them - but this will prove very useful." He held up the hand with the ring, which had already altered itself to fit snugly on Chrome's small hand.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Body-hopping espionage! Or, let's see how many Interesting Clues you can get in two days when you're a possession-using sneaky bastard. 
> 
> Also technically two deaths, and a brief bit toward the end that should have a warning for the needle-phobic. While it wasn't really in Mukuro's plans, sometimes it sucks to be one of his unwitting potential hosts.

There'd been survivors of a few of the massacres. 

Most of them were actually intentional. Get a few marked targets; the stronger Famiglia would take them in, in the misguided hope they'd be a source of information on the enemy they were trying to catch, nurse them back to health from other injuries, and in the end, it meant having a spread of unwitting pawns, Manchurian sleepers he could step into. He had enough built that way that he could've continued on from Vendicare, if he thought the Vendice would let him get away with it and not just cut off humoring his little game; skip the fronts and visible faces, turn into a faceless specter that could be anyone.

With the new "mission", it meant having more avenues for what had been asked than they'd realized; the Vongola and their allies, after all, did still tend to be more "humane" than usual for Mafia, and had taken in quite a few of his sleeper pawns.

The only thing he'd been asked was to serve as the Mist Guardian for the Ring Battle, for the sake of ensuring that Xanxus's power-grab failed. The two mistakes they'd made if they wanted to know what he was up to, was that they'd let him know the end goal and slipped the larger purpose, and that they hadn't specified any boundaries on his duties.

And if "victory" involved "Xanxus loses", then of course he was going to take an interest in Xanxus's entire plan, and he highly doubted there wouldn't be some movement in Italy to match what was being done in Japan; securing the succession would be useless if he couldn't ensure the loyalty of the organization. 

One of his sleepers had managed to end up staff to the Ninth himself, and he'd taken full advantage of that, shifting between coaching Chrome and watching through that particular agent; there'd already been signs of movement - subtle things, people coming back from trips, bits of activity that pointed to gathering power in the headquarters. 

Getting a better idea of how far it went had taken a little more hands-on approach, putting a little more pressure to take over completely, the unwitting host blacked out unconscious while he was going about normal business and just… running errands that happened to mean passing through where he could get a feel for what was going on, to get enough notes in the host's hand to maybe put a small monkey wrench in the works.

He walked into the Ninth's office wearing the face of a just-out-of-teens survivor of one of Mukuro's massacres. "Sir? I don't mean to intrude, just, there's something that's been bothering me…"

The Ninth glanced up; he'd noticed occasional odd glances when he was watching, but this was different - almost like there was a half-moment of tensing for something else before the old man covered it with his usual friendly demeanor. "Of course not, come in, come in." 

"Well, it's a politics thing… ah, it might just be me being paranoid, but - well…"

There was a listening nod and a hand gesture, with an odd feeling he was being humored. 

"There's an awful lot of Xanxus's old supporters and allies of theirs that've been gathering around the headquarters lately, and I'm not sure it's a coincidence."

"I see my friend had good instincts when he picked you for this." The Ninth seemed tired, almost saddened with that, and a red flag went up in Mukuro's mind; his host was among the people on staff the Ninth had chosen himself. "You're likely correct; I've suspected he was going to move again, and that it would be more tangled of a web this time than the last." 

"Then - shouldn't you be calling in extra security, or gathering force here? If it's an internal power grab, then there's already something in place, isn't there?"

"Call in CEDEF, you mean?" The Ninth chucked bitterly, shaking his head. "They were gutted years ago; we've barely got enough to try to mind that the succession challenge is following the rules, and when it comes to internal armed force, most of it already answers to Xanxus. Pushing it to the challenge and giving up the ring was the only thing I could do - put it out of either of our hands, and into the hands of the next generation and the rings themselves." There was a small, pointed glance, and somehow, it was even more certain that yes, the Ninth did know who he was talking to, and that it wasn't his aide. 

He opened his mouth to ask something - if he was being humored, he may as well see about arranging something to distract, maybe find out more about what he'd walked into, particularly with that odd wording - but was interrupted by the room going dark, the power cutting out. 

He stepped away from the desk, gun out and trained on the doorway; the aide didn't have an active flame, he couldn't do more than minor tricks if anything and he was cursing that when the door opened and greeted him with a wall of lightning flame projected forward; his host body was knocked back, off his feet, the gun skittering away.

He was growing to loathe that trick from the Varia subordinates.

"So this is what it's come to." The Ninth stood; he was working on getting the host body to obey, trying to feel out how much he could believably do without alerting the Varia that there was a possession-technique user at work - something he was less inclined to tip his hand to when chains grew out of the floor to hold him to the floor; another illusionist, albeit not a horribly powerful one. "That'll be quite enough; if Xanxus has something to say to me, he can say it to me directly, but I'm not going to throw lives away for this feud." The old man gave Mukuro a brief glance, a tilt of the raised hand; something not quite visible of a 'stand down' order. "I'll go with you."

There was a confused pause, then they ushered the Ninth out between them, leaving the room.

He knew that wasn't the end of it from the fact that the chains didn't dissipate after they left; sure enough, one of them came back after a few minutes, pausing to retrieve the gun he'd dropped.

Judging by how quiet it was, they were aiming to avoid any witnesses, which meant he was being seen as a loose end. 

Host bodies dying while he was there was always so much more uncomfortable when it wasn't something he'd planned.

\-----

He'd hopped to another sleeper the next day, after he'd managed to shake off the residual ick from "dying"; there was a very obvious "something wrong" - nobody had noticed anything but a power outage, and the Ninth was present, as if nothing happened. From the one time he managed to get close to get any feel for the illusions, he was pretty sure the "Ninth" was the same illusionist that'd been there the night before. 

Kidnapping the Ninth and replacing him with a double … it was an odd plan, and hinted at something with more subtlety than he would've expected from the records. 

It took a little more jumping between the few hosts he had that might work to find one that could get around one of the areas there was more movement - and a bit of catching details to find a hidden door into some old underground chamber, a large weapons lab of some kind.

It was quiet, no sign of anyone else there at the time, but he was still on edge, nosing around in dim lighting cast by equipment; a few notes, parts of something larger that were being packed to move - 

And one set of schematics among the things that were laid out that he scanned over. The engineering and detailed wiring notes were beyond him, but some of the notation and terms were familiar enough, as well as other bits that twinged things he remembered better than he'd thought from his childhood - systems for feeding off and using a strong enough source of Flames, suppression mechanisms to ensure control of the power source - 

He was considering if he could get away with sabotage when a gloved hand caught the back collar of his shirt; he caught a glimpse of reflection in a shut-down monitor in front of him, light glinting off glasses, and the jab of a needle in his neck before everything went numb, fuzzy, and black.

That last part, when he got his mental footing back in the Vendicare from his second host death in two days, bothered him; he had a good pause in the blank void of the tank to think. It had to be a Mist user; his attention had been on the schematics, yes, but he'd also been looking up to tally sabotage chances, and there hadn't even been a sign of the door opening or any sign of anyone else in the chamber before he was grabbed. The other illusionists he'd seen were ones he could've run rings around, felt coming a mile away; whoever had caught him there, they were a worrying presence.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And after all that espionage...
> 
> Clearly the next priority is taking the new minion clothes shopping. It counts as constructive, right? I mean, there's even a few early illusion lessons for her!

Once he was feeling stabilized again, enough to be restless in the empty darkness instead of distracted by his thoughts and the residual death shock, he slipped off down another line, curling up like a cat in the back of Chrome's mind. She was still getting her bearings around Kokuyo, lost and confused; Ken was making himself scarce more often than not, Chikusa sticking to routine around the old visitor's center, keeping wary watch on her when she was around.

She was such a small, fragile thing compared to the rest of them; so much power resting untouched - she shouldn't have survived that accident on her own at all - but so little stability or solidity to direct it.

And still wearing his shirt over a dusty, ragged, moth-eaten old sun dress that'd been salvaged from the old visitor's shop, the remains of a bright resort mascot sewn onto the front.

_We need to get you clothes._

She squeaked, not quite expecting him to speak and still getting used to that, although otherwise she was doing the mental equivalent of leaning back into him… or trying to hide behind him, he wasn't sure which.

The answer wasn't really voiced, but a jumble of bits and ideas as she was trying to find something to say while being afraid to say most of it - how would they get out, what if people saw them, how would they pay for it, she'd never been out alone…

_It will be alright. You aren't going alone, I will be with you. As for being seen…_ Considering her own habits, it should be a simple enough trick. _Pretend that you aren't here. You are air, invisible; nobody will see or hear you, or ever know you're there. You're separate from everyone, and they cannot see you, hear you, or touch you. Wrap yourself in it until it's real; I will help you, so that you can learn to do it for yourself._ He nudged control, just enough to tug at her power while she focused on his directions; guiding her own reflex and instinct to help train that pattern in. Once it was running through her will on it - and "I am not here/nobody can see me" was not a hard trick for her to put will into - he carefully pulled back, letting it just be her controlling it while he stayed a background supportive presence. He gave a nudge to go ahead and go outside; she walked right past Chikusa, reading, with him completely oblivious, not even noticing when she stopped to pick up her mother's purse that they'd taken when she'd left the hospital.

Good; she wasn't quite paying mind, just focused on trying to be quiet. _There you go. As long as you keep that up, no-one can see you; you might have to be careful not to run into people, but you'll be safe._ While he was at it, he did do one thing to add to it - adding a few layers of his own, to mask her against other illusionists being able to see or find her; the last thing they needed was some Varia agent catching her at this stage. 

That Ken didn't show up following or questioning on the way out did get a pause from her - she'd caught on that it was normal for him to do that, and Mukuro nudged gently. _You're doing well; I'll make sure it holds so that it stays up this way, just keep going._

She nodded, and walked out, careful on the road with the simple slippers. It was a comfortable place for the quiet walk, staying curled in the back of her mind, watching that her illusion was stable and not taking too much out of her, nudging here and there so it wasn't burning too much power until they'd made it off the interchange and into town. 

At first, she'd stopped, up against a wall, just watching the people and traffic; she'd never been out alone, and after the hospital and everything else, it was an almost overwhelming amount of noise. 

_You're not alone - you'll never need to be alone again. I'm with you._

She nodded, stepping away from the wall, folding her arms to hold onto the sleeves of his borrowed shirt. _There you go. No-one can see you, and you are my Chrome - always remember that._

Chrome stood up a little straighter, and started walking; while he wasn't necessarily saying much, he was keeping a constant presence, occasionally tugging attention one way or another, towards one thing or another that seemed interesting, until finding a few shops where he was fairly sure they could manage something approximating the girl's Kokuyo uniform - or at least, something somewhat like it. 

He did start catching that there was a difference in ideas fairly fast with some of what was being picked up, although she was following his directions…

Just turning a very interesting shade of red, and with increasing amounts of "…are you sure?" at some of what he was picking out, along with small fussing about whether it would even FIT and she couldn't wear this and…

Which just led to a nudge to the changing room, to check if it would.

She set the purse and the pile of clothes down… and then stopped staring at the mirror, turning even more of a shade of red.

"A-ah…d-don't watch!" The protest was out loud, and audible enough for the illusion to drop briefly; they both froze, Mukuro quietly nudging to bring it back up before anyone investigated. He stepped back, partially, with at least a pretense of a sort of 'privacy screen' and not watching.

…less of a real one than he'd admit; it wasn't exactly something where he understood how _fussy_ most people were about modesty, particularly from someone where he was periodically inhabiting her body and had gotten her out of a hospital. He understood even less the undercurrent of 'don't want him to see me like this I'm hideous I'm a wreck'; she had scars, she was still healing and recovering, and all of it was things he'd already known about before - not exactly anything new or alarming. If anything, as much as there was a great deal of using illusions to cover things, she was doing very well, considering she was only a week out of something that should've killed her. 

As far as he would let on, he didn't start paying attention again until there was the long, silent pause as she was staring at her own reflection, 'noticing she was done'. She still took a couple beats to acknowledge that he was paying attention again, and it was with a basically wordless tangle of "Oh god I can't go out looking like this" mixed with wondering if she was somehow the butt of a joke but not wanting to say that to him and oh god the skirt was so _short_ and her legs were showing and what if someone saw her and the black top was so close fitting and oh god her stomach was showing and - 

He did, at least, pre-empt the fussing about some of the scars, nudging in a few small illusions added to the much more complicated ones that kept her alive; just reinforcing the image of "whole and healthy", which honestly made the rest of it a little easier, adding with it his own response of a perfectly calm sense of bright approval that only somehow served to increase the amount of red she was turning, and shift the entire tangle she was having into a single, straight note of _disbelief_. She couldn't go out looking like this.

_And why not? You're my Chrome, now; you have nothing to be ashamed of._

She nodded, swallowing hard and turning that over; pushing it from "oh god I can't go out like this" into pushing away Nagi; Nagi had died in the accident, she was Chrome now, something Mukuro had given her, and this was a part of that.

She gave a stray glance at the clothes she'd come in with - what passed for it - with a note of despair; how was she going to pay for these dressed like that?

Mukuro's first thought, honestly, was to just walk out under an illusion; while he was all for a bit of revenge-spending on her mother's cards, her getting clothes was the first priority and the one where worrying about paying for it would overcomplicate things - and that was the plan he sketched out in her head; just keep up the illusion she'd come in under, and walk out; they'd need to find her better shoes, a proper eyepatch, and possibly abuse the cards to get some first aid supplies and other small things to stock Kokuyo with - and tomorrow, when she had proper clothes, they could bring Ken and Chikusa to help carry things so they could stock up on nonperishables, among other things.

She picked up his shirt to take it back with her - and then, on a stray thought from him, the poor old sun-dress, just to be sure there wasn't evidence that might lead to someone looking at the old amusement park.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chrome's first illusion lessons, and why sparrows are lousy spies.

Stealthing in and out getting what they could and covering what thefts ended up happening was perfectly good foundation practice, as much as he spent a good part of it doing the equivalent of a parent pretending to hold up a child's bicycle while taking their hands away - she had more than enough raw power and talent, but not the confidence in herself yet to hold it. 

It was a good start, and being able to get away with as much as they did was a great deal for someone who'd never actually used their powers before.

Unfortunately, while there weren't exact details yet, he'd gleaned enough from his own investigations to know what they were up against. He and the others had tangled with lower-ranking agents of the Varia in the past, and those "lackeys" had been among the more dangerous things they'd tangled with as children; they were up against the leaders, now, and she'd need at least enough to potentially survive against the most dangerous people the Vongola had - something where learning it would take more time and more pushing of her system than they could afford with her frail condition, under normal circumstances.

Which was why he waited until she'd fallen asleep to cheat; a little tug to walk into her dreams, as he had when they first met. 

The idyllic, escapist forest had taken on a few new traits - what might've been the ruins of a carousel, now almost unrecognizable under the tree roots and growth; a few other pieces here and there that he smiled quietly at - while none of it was quite familiar as parts of Kokuyo itself, she also had barely been there a few days, and the basic idea was clear enough; pieces of an abandoned and partly nature-reclaimed amusement park becoming a part of her idea of 'safety'. 

The clearing she stayed in was the same as before, and she still hadn't quite left behind the plain white dress, although there was a hospital eyepatch over her missing eye. 

"Mukuro-sama! Is everything alright?" 

He shook his head slightly, smiling calmly; still unsure enough to assume something might be wrong.

"You did well today, Chrome - I wanted to teach you how to use your illusions, should there be a threat, without putting too much strain on you.". He gestured to the forest around them. "The power of an illusion comes from how 'real' it is to the illusionist; so making something real in a dream like this, growing used to it being solid, will help it be solid when you are awake and actually using power.". 

Chrome nodded, but there was an unsure glance at the trees around them; the dream space had been a solace for years, but not something where the idea of it being real had ever been a thought.

"Is something wrong?"

She almost flinched, unsure how to react - nobody asked her questions like that, not with actually meaning them. "I-I...I'm not sure I could make anything real like that..."

Mukuro sighed softly, glancing down to the grass as he walked over closer, a hand resting gently on her shoulder. "I would not be able to work through you if you did not have the same potential; I did little more than act as a guiding hand earlier - it was your power that kept us hidden."

"But... It doesn't work, to make something like this forest real...". She was looking away, only sparing small glances to him.

He chuckled, soft and quiet. "It could; but it would take time to build the reserves of power needed to support it in the real world. Would you like to see where I learned?"

There was a tiny uncertain hum - a mumble without the movement for it to get past her throat; she shifted her weight and nodded.

"Alright. Nothing you see will harm you, I promise you - give me this place and I will show you."

It was a tiny mental nudge, his memory there; not taking it away by force, just a tug for permission, giving her the choice to give him control. For a few moments her safe place knotted it's existence harder, fear and years of broken trust tangling, before she found a pattern to pull the right thread, surrendering the dream over. 

The forest dropped away, replaced with a plain of blasted-looking bare rock; the sky overhead, if it was a sky, was blocked out completely by a canopy of thick, dark smoke, shot through with lightning and sparks of flame. A river flowed nearby, wide and deep, thicker than water and deep crimson, flames licking across its surface and bubbling up from eddies within it. The area was blanketed by thin bits of the smell of smoke, heat-hazed over something sickly metallic, and hot breezes carried a distant sound of screams and sobbing.

Mukuro was still and calm; Chrome's eye widened, a hand going to her mouth as she shrank, processing everything around them. He took a step closer, both hands on her shoulders, a soft nudge closer - stability and something secure. "It's a memory; old scrolls in this world would call this place the Hell of Burning Blood. It is a frightful place, but one with a purpose - souls that fall into this place carry deep hurt, too much to heal themselves; through this, the hurt they do to themselves is burned out until they can be reborn with a clean start. The demons that dwell here are frightful and dangerous, but have a meaning to their existence."

She tensed, but leaned closer, looking up again at the river and lowering her hand with a slight nod. " Your memory... You were?". She nodded to the river and looked up at him, any fear of the setting turned to worry. 

Mukuro shook his head. "I was one of Enma-oh's demons, in another life; that part of my being was one of the things brought into this body - I had power over the reality here, such as an illusion would give.". He gave her shoulders a gentle squeeze, taking a careful half-step back. "Do not be afraid - whatever image I may carry, I am myself.". 

He gave her a moment to ponder that, searching for what he meant, before his own image changed; something much taller, a humanoid figure with legs somewhere between reptilian and a bird's talons ending in hooked claws, scaled hands ending in long claws more fitting a bird of prey. Black feathers and scales covered his body under a simple cloth drape. He'd kept his eyes, mostly, to keep a familiar touch point, but they were set in an avian skull, a heavy raven's bill with a few long, sharp teeth showing. A long, scaled tail curled around her as he shifted to kneel so his eye level would be at least a little closer, the claws staying gently around her now comparatively smaller shoulders. As theatrical as it was, it was also more comfortable in that setting; the human self-image never did mesh well with the fragmented memories of the Hells. 

There were a few quiet, wide-eyed moments and a faint "Mukuro...sama?" before she bowed her head with a faint smile, a hand going up to settle on one of his claws as she relaxed. It didn't really surprise him that she'd gone more at ease with him as a demon; she was another one that'd seen more than enough of what cruelty humans were capable of to make even a demon feel more trustworthy, something that existed with a purpose.

"This is what I was when I learned.". He moved one of his hands to hold it out to the river as if beckoning; the flowing blood bubbled as a pillar of flames rose out of it, moving over to stop a few feet away, close enough for a wash of heat. He gave a guiding nudge with the claw still resting on her shoulder, encouraging her a few inches closer to him and a little closer and facing it, a gesture she followed. "It exists and moves because I remember it - the heat, how it glows and flickers, the way it shifts in a breeze, and I make that memory real - it does not have to be something of this place.". The light flickered, the flames receding and shifting as if shrinking around something before going out, leaving behind a thin pillar of twined vines with lotus blossoms hanging from them, the heat going out with the flames. Chrome stepped forward, reaching out to feel one of the flower petals with a careful hand. "Could you bring something from your forest here? Just a small, simple thing, for now; a few flowers or a bird - remember it well and see it here, wish for it to be here, and you can learn to make it real.". Start small, with less scale to doubt herself. 

Chrome nodded to him, and gave a last look to the lotus vines before she bowed her head, hands folded in front of her chest and eye closed in concentration. 

A tiny shoot struggled out of the ground at her feet, leaves unfurling as it bloomed; she didn't see it, eye still closed as her brow creased with concentration, and more blades of grass and shoots of flowers began to sprout. Mukuro rocked back on his heels, head tilted with interest as he watched; the lotus pillar vanished, no longer needed. The green patch grew and spread under his feet and around them, her own worry about not doing well enough mingling with her expectations of what "should" be there around the flower, until a larger shoot broke ground, a stem strengthening into a sapling that grew as he watched, branches spreading out to shade over their head with leaves; it wasn't until there was a tiny, twittering chirp from the branches that she opened her eye, stepping back with a small squeak at the new, tiny garden grown around Mukuro's larger demonic frame. He righted his head, looking from it to her with a proud feather-fluff.

"I - what?" The grass started vanishing. "Did you -?"

"No, no - this was all yours; you remembered the flower with grass and trees, so it has grass and a tree.". He was proudly bemused, holding a hand up for quiet. "You did well - it will get stronger with practice."

Perhaps she would be up to standing up to something herself sooner than he thought; at this rate, she might be able to change the Hell back to her forest within a few night's practice, an exercise he could easily shift into pushing against him gradually until she learned to push her will over another's.  
\------------------------

It was getting harder to find someone to look through or use around the headquarters; anything interesting was under higher security, and the only potential hosts he found that were allowed near were a couple Varia subordinates - not ones with enough rank to get as close as he wanted. 

They were moving something, crates and boxes, as well as other orders; the Varia followers were getting pre-emptive orders, quietly trickling out somewhere else to be ready. None of his were being moved yet, and it was a "You'll know when you get there and receive further instruction there" basis, making them useless.

He had suspicions what they were moving - but wanted to be sure; the crates were, thankfully, being loaded outside. 

He kept his closest host as a spatial point of reference, a jumping off point as he slipped towards a different mentality, reaching out for other minds closer to that - simpler, small, nervous things, a few sparrows that lived on the grounds; he couldn't directly posess them easily, but could look through them, send some ideas and suggestions. 

Suggestions like "there might be food dropped around those boxes" and "the cats on the grounds were chased away from them"; simple appeals to food and shelter from predators. 

The birds fluttered down to the ground in a narrow space between the crates, hopping along for crumbs left behind by the men loading them - some of which had been sneaking food, making it not a total lie and easier to keep the birds there, catching a closer look at the crates and a few words from someone on the other side - apparently a conversation where the others had been shooed out of earshot on pretense of a break. 

"-elieve he's actually going to use it... That thing gives me the creeps; anything Mussolini's people were behind is bad news.". Someone older, much older; he made a mental note of the voice. "I didn't think the Ninth would be okay with anything his mother had to put a stop to."

"Well, he signed off on it yesterday - he wants the Mosca ready and moved, As long as it works, it doesn't matter who made it; it's ours now.". So they weren't in the loop entirely. 

"I still don't like it... I heard that thing gets powered by putting someone's heart in it or feeding it off a living person or something like that, and the Eighth was pretty adamant that it was only here to study if someone else made one - she really hated this thing.". 

The other man laughed; something about how he was brushing this off crossed Mukuro's instincts wrong. "you really believe an old wives' tale like that? That doesn't even make sense, it's a machine, and an old one at that. She didn't let anybody study it so people made up stories. They probably just used prisoners for target practice or something unconscionable-research like that, and she didn't want to be associated with it,". 

Far too light about it; unfortunately, he leaned on the other side of one of the crates so it shifted, enough to startle the sparrows into deciding they didn't want to be there. 

He dropped his influence, sinking in the tank for a small sulk; sparrows were lousy at being reliable spies. He'd need to spend some of the day resting anyway before he spent more time training Chrome, as much as he disliked the dark and silence of the tank; there were times he wasn't even sure if "rest" was meditation or actually sleeping even after the fact.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's enough references to Buddhist folklore everywhere in things with Mukuro, including his NAME, that yes, that is where I'm basing the Paths, so Mukuro's demon "self" is based loosely on some of the legends of the Ten Hells and the court of the underworld. I AM treating it as "there's something there where the Estraneo got more than they bargained for" since... he went from flat mute to "Just as I thought, this world isn't worth saving" in Path of Heaven, which would... actually make a whole lot of sense if he was just jarred into contact with it and basically in a mental state of some lower-Heavens Deva. Also, the staff Mukurou turns into during Inheritance Arc is a traveling monk's staff often also seen on statues/depictions of boddhisatva and Jizou.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mukuro goes chasing information on the Mosca, and ends up walking into a little more than he bargained for. 
> 
> *I will note here that some of the characters mentioned come from some batting around other things that may one day get fleshed out/posted involving Spade, the Eighth Gen, and World War II, that came from doing a bit of trying to build on what very little is in canon and figuring out relative date-ranges.
> 
> Also this wasn't entirely planned.

He started in a younger host - one that had lived through a massacre because he'd been a few years younger than Mukuro, a frightened child that had yet to grow into Mafia like his family at the time. The Vongola had adopted him, and while he wasn't allowed anywhere restricted, he had relative run of the less secure areas... Free enough that he knew from a couple incidents of watching that many of the older Vongola told him stories. He hadn't paid much attention before; now it was useful, with a small gamble on wandering certain areas listening in on things until he saw the old man from yesterday, eating lunch by an oddly Japanese koi pond in the courtyard.

He walked over, nodding to the old man in acknowledgement, sitting by the pond to watch the fish; there were a few that were a good three feet, well kept enough that they either were brought in grown, or the pond had been there a long time.

"Lovely, aren't they?". 

Jackpot. He looked up with a nod, expression unsure. 

"I remember feeding them when I was small, just after I was first brought here...the First had it built, as a gift for his homesick Rain Guardian, and that a couple of the fish here today are from the original few." A tie like that would explain why the First had descendants in Japan. He nodded, shifting on the side of the pond to listen better; the old man turned, although he was watching the fish wistfully. "It was so long ago... I ran into the Rain Guardian at the time here. Didn't know who she was, just that she was someone important and she looked sad, so I went and got flowers from one of the flowerbeds. She said this place reminded her of her grandfather."

 

A bit of mental plotting of age ranges; from overheard bits, the last two bosses had broken some kind of streak of short life expectancies - all of the Ninth's guardians were men, which meant the Eighth Generation, who'd been through World War II from the bits yesterday.

 

"I wonder what they would say now…"

 

"Hm?" His small noise interrupted the thoughtful moment; definitely something odd about the factional split, here.

 

"Ah - it's nothing that important; people are people, they fight sometimes. I'm sure the Ninth will straighten it out." The old man gave him a gentle hairruffle, and it took a moment of conscious thought to not pull away from it - that would apparently be expected and normal, and he didn't really want to draw suspicion based on his own behavior. There was a pause - the moment of flinch had been noticed - and the man folded his hands in his lap carefully. "Sorry about that; I was smaller when I ended up here, more time to adjust to not having to be afraid anymore." 

 

He settled sitting on the railing, keeping outwardly neutral while he poked at that puzzle, another question after a pause to push things back a more useful direction. "How long have you been here?"

 

"Almost sixty years… my mother fled Czechoslovakia with me, but took ill while we were running - we had nothing and were on the streets. A few Vongola people found us as she was dying, and she begged them to take me; they brought me back to Italy with them, and I grew up with the other orphans and rescues. A good number of the people here came here that way - it's an old tradition, makes sure the people at the headquarters have perspective; the Eighth said she wasn't sure if it was entirely intentional on her grandfather's part or just something that happened because of his tendency to adopt people that worked." 

 

"You knew her?" Awe and interest; that was what he wanted to chase - that was the direction to find who might know what that weapon is.

 

The old man chuckled. "Not well, but they spent time with the kids here when they could, and the Ninth used to look after the younger kids, or stay with us when she had to be away from the base and couldn't take him with her. She was tough as nails and twice as sharp, dangerous to cross, but all of it was aimed at what was right; protecting the weak, helping others, fighting those who'd abuse power. When I was little, she was helping rebuild the parts of Italy the government forgets, and would send people where she could to help people fleeing the Iron Curtain. She was kept busy, but some of her Guardians would take days off just to help with the kids here.". He was staring off into the trees, lost in bits of memory for a few minutes; Mukuro stayed quiet, waiting for him to continue. "They're mostly gone, now, old age and hard lives; Renee retired in the village, visits when he can, though the last few years it's been more some of us visiting him than him being able to make the trip." 

 

There was what he needed - a name, an area, enough clues that when he host-jumped he could track down someone who'd _know_ what the weapon they were smuggling out was; he ended up spending a good couple hours by the fishpond after, lacking any good graceful way to leave - not that listening to stories was useless; he came out of it knowing a good bit of the usual routine and general history of the last few decades, at least as much as someone that'd lived there would've seen and known, and enough to have an idea what the normal patterns would be. No major information, but little things, the sort where watching for where they were disturbed or what was setting patterns would outline the larger things.

He took some time after that to just duck around and check things to find out where his old Eight Generation guardian was; by that point, it was afternoon, and about timed to have a good direction to go for that particular meeting - older teenager, still young enough to not draw much attention but old enough that more serious subjects wouldn't be too out of the ordinary. Some of the kids they'd adopted went to the small school in town and lived outside the main building, and from what he'd managed to find, Renee had settled not far from the school. 

Catch the potential-host on the way out of the school, and just make sure the way back went past the old Guardian's house. He lived basically alone, although there were apparently a good number of people from the headquarters that would visit and help out; the visits had been thinned out some by the current conflict, which meant good odds he could drop by without someone else paying attention. 

It was a bright, sunny, hot day, clear skies with light breezes; someone visiting would likely think there was nothing wrong at all with the tiny village, an idyllic little retreat from the rest of the world. It was clear enough to him how much the village's existence was tied to the Vongola headquarters from the number of people on the street, civilians, were uneasy or on edge; some combination of how much the Vongola owned the town, and how aware the people were, that tensions in the Family's headquarters would put the normal folk on edge. 

The house itself was easy enough to find - not a huge house, and only one story, with a large back yard that had a short fence, flowers and flowering trees out front of a veranda that went the length of the front of the house. It seemed like a good enough guess that the one old, thin, white-haired figure sitting on the porch with a book was the one he was looking for; he was quietly mentally cursing how little time he'd had for any kind of preparation to have a guess how to approach when the man looked up, a much more obviously quizzical look.

"How to approach this" got answered for him a second or two later. "You don't need to stand all the way over there, I don't bite." Renee settled the book in his lap, waving Mukuro over; he walked up onto the porch, still unsure of this whole thing, and was waved to the other chair on the porch, on the other side of a small table. It was comfortable, peaceful, and Mukuro knew it was far below the means of what he likely could've managed; no sign of interest in any displays of luxury. For how old he had to be, he wasn't doing that badly; frail, skin gathered and wrinkled in patches of old habit and age and wear with basically just enough weight to not be too alarming between it and bone, but he was also at least ninety by Mukuro's best estimate of history, blue eyes still clear and alert, and he was settled and relaxed in his chair. "Was there some kind of party I missed the invitation for? It's gotten awfully quiet." 

"I don't know… there's been a lot of security keeping people out of the keep." He fidgetted, frowning with a look off toward the wall further across town. 

"I wonder who blew what up this time." He sighed, sounding more boredly curious than worried, finger running around the rim of a wine glass. "Good to see that you haven't forgotten one bored old man, in all the excitement, Gennaro." 

Crap. "Why would I? I mean, this is probably one of the best places to be right now, and I'd rather have your stories than guns pointed at me." 

"That bad, eh?" There was something about that smile that had Mukuro wanting to upgrade the level of 'this is not a good place to be right now'; even worse, there was some usual traffic of people coming and going out of earshot on the street - people that would notice if something odd happened, even if it was just him finding some excuse to hurry off. "Well, I can't say I blame you, I know I'd rather be out here with the garden than in there. How's practice been?"

…Renee was just a shade too happy about this, and Mukuro was getting the suspicion he'd been caught out by someone much more annoying about it than the Ninth had been. "It's been good!" Oh god, was it sports practice? Music? Something else? "I've been getting ahead of most of the others." He leaned an elbow on the table, watching the flowers; he needed a subject change, and now. "How have you been? The people helping haven't been forgetting you, have they?"

Now that was the kind of impish smile that was more than enough for Mukuro to know he'd just messed up somewhere in that. "Oh, nothing you need to worry about; my mind may not be what it once was, but I'm not going to keel over if someone forgets to check in on me for one night." 

A bomb going off somewhere down the street would be nice. Freak meteor. Something. He could do "normal teenager" well enough usually, but he'd picked the wrong host on incredibly short notice and the old bastard _knew_ ; he kept the tangent out of the way, just giving a relieved smile. "Sorry; I just worry sometimes - no telling what might happen on an off day, and you've been confusing things lately."

Renee just smiled a little brighter, leaning his chin on one hand. "What kind of 'off day' are we talking? 'Put the sugar in the salt bowl' off, 'girlfriend caught me cheating' off, or 'someone mysteriously lit the gas line' off?" 

He was beginning to wonder if maybe there'd be a few more reasons for Renee to expect someone trying to off him than just 'ex leadership of the most powerful Mafia Family in existence'. "I was thinking accidents, I don't know why _anyone_ would want to kill you."

That got a laugh, as if this were the greatest game in the world. "Ah, it's been a while since I've heard things like that - why, you're starting to remind me of my dearest Rosa." 

Either there was more of some old Vongola's love life than he ever wanted to know, or there was a jab there of the 'I've seen this game before' sort that would make Mukuro's life so much more complicated; he wasn't going to give up the 'this is normal conversation and joking' act so easily himself. "I really hope not, I'd look horrible in a dress."

"So did he - but that was mostly fussing and arguing." That grin got a little more intent in ways Mukuro didn't like. "But seriously, Rokudou, to what do I owe the pleasure of one of the underworld's biggest bogeymen of the day dropping by to visit?" Still acting like it was some kind of game.

Technically speaking, with his current bargain, this wasn't an enemy … and thanks to street traffic, he still didn't have a graceful way out, or any hope of any kind of charade. Mukuro's smile tipped a little more strained and irritated as he closed his eyes, brows knitting. "I have a bargain with one of the Tenth Generation candidates; I'm attempting to keep my side of that bargain." When he opened his eyes, the right one was red, the six kanji showing in it; no reason to bother hiding that when nobody on the street would be able to see it anyway. "When did you figure it out?"

"When 'you' didn't go bounding up the steps to get a drink out of the kitchen. Also being here this early on a day when there's choir practice, and you know, first suspect at a time like this with someone who's had a close call with an illusionist…" He waved forward lazily, the logic from there simple. "I'd wonder about your story, but, well, Xanxus. Bright kid, really, could be better, took all the wrong lessons, and he's not _nearly_ as subtle as he thinks he is right now. But, what would I know…I'm just a retired, half-senile old man with a garden." He settled back in his chair, unconcerned with who he was talking to, sipping on his wine. 

His cover was well and truly blown; may as well see what he could find out. "They were shipping something out, an old weapon; I couldn't get close enough to tell much, but there was a name, and something said about your people." Some of the smile faded, and Renee's eyes flickered back over to him. "I need to know what it is before it's aimed at us… it was called the 'Mosca'." 

The smile vanished, and Renee set his wine down tiredly. "I wonder how he found out about _that_." The sheer amount of bitter flat was a sharp contrast to a few minutes ago, and he noticed that while the old man hadn't moved, he was watching the people going by; mind not what it used to be, really. "It's a robot, of sorts. Looks like a tall, broad armored figure; bullets don't pierce it, and it's treated with something that will resist most other things. There's a bunch of different weapons built into it, enough that one turned loose could level a good part of this town by itself, and it's powered by Dying Will Flames; they'd been experimenting on captives. I don't remember the details, but it draws off some victim trapped inside it, and follows whatever orders its given." He rubbed the bridge of his nose, burying his face in one hand for a moment, mumbling something in French that Mukuro didn't manage to catch at all. "Reborn's over there, right?"

"Yes. He's the tutor for the other candidate." 

Renee nodded quietly, hands folding in his lap over his book. "Well, he's more likely than most to come up with a way to bring that down without too much loss of life. It took two of us going full-power to contain the damage and bring it down, and even then, we weren't able to save the prisoner that was locked in it." Mukuro nodded; with what else he'd seen, that made some disturbing possible points. "Your host - how is he?"

Mukuro shrugged. "Asleep; he won't remember any of this." It was true; he had no reason to do anything unnecessary. 

"How bad is it, in the base?" 

"…Locked down; some areas are closed off entirely, but they're trying to avoid it looking like anything odd is going on - it's being passed off as increased security after 'an attempt on the Ninth's life'." He paused, glancing to the street himself. "The Ninth isn't there; he was taken a few days ago - they have someone mimicking him to throw off suspicion."

The old man frowned, then shook his head quietly, picking his book back up. "Not much for one old man to do right now, then; I do thank you for the company." Wry and tired; Mukuro nodded - if nothing else he'd found a contact, albeit one that was potentially much more observant than he was comfortable with on some things, but still useful, in the current situation. "I do hope this bargain of yours works out - I'd rather have you as a friend than an enemy, and we might need all the help we can get." 

Mukuro nodded, standing to go; there were a list of other problems, now, including having to deal with some old dictator's superweapon, and high odds of another layer to it that bothered him.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mukuro takes some time to tend to Chrome's physical recovery and ends up becoming the world's most clueless therapist for a while, with a short break to learn more than he wanted to know about the Varia's underlings.

The next morning, Mukuro tugged at Chrome for control for a short while; not fully taking over, but enough to manage tending to things without the effects of Chrome's injuries being an issue, letting her quietly sit watching 'over shoulder'; while he'd left the option of backing out to "peace and quiet", she had, instead opted for the mental equivalent of leaning on him as he took care of her body. He'd opted for taking care of cleaning the glass eye and the still-healing eye socket first, the plain emergency prosthetic the hospital had left her with the simpler part of it. There was little to be done there, besides keeping things clean and making sure there weren't any infections threatening. 

Before he really got to the rest of them, he was going to need to be able to see what he was doing to deal with the mess of abrasion-injuries, scraped off skin, cuts, and surgical stitching. As it was now, there were things needing tending pretty much all over her body; skinned patches on her shoulders, around her chest and side, down her arms, along her hips and legs in places, with large stitched-closed gashes over her stomach and a couple other, smaller gashes stitched in a couple other places, a map over her body of illusions covering things and keeping them from being an issue while they healed. 

The illusions didn't mean they wouldn't need cleaned and cared for, however, and there were a few things that would get in the way of that; he draped her coat over the back of the couch, threw a sheet that'd been bleached and dried over it, and somewhere while he was taking off her boots and socks the implication sank in on her with a spike of almost-panicked embarrassment and accidental resistance, a mental jumble about being seen naked. 

He held still as he was, hands still on getting the second sock off, with a very calm and measured message back - he needed to clean and take care of her injuries to be sure they wouldn't get infected or worsen, and change bandages over much of it; he couldn't do that with her clothes in the way. She had a small conflict with her own impulses that jagged about four different ways, which he stayed calm for until she'd at least managed "hold still and quiet" enough for him to continue, folding her clothes neatly on an end-table that he occasionally kept in the room for things like this. 

Dealing with the illusions was a far more delicate dance, and one where he quite pointedly tried to make sure what he was doing mentally to control the Mist flame was visible to Chrome. By this point, technically, part of what was supporting it was bits of energy that came from her that he was weaving into it, using the normal possession principles of control over a host's energy. The internal organs he maintained, and the parts that were splinting broken bone, holding it together with an illusion that it was 'whole' that left just enough room for it to slowly knit. He dropped the parts that covered the surface injuries - parts gashed open and still-healing abrasions and bruises, scraped off skin in patches all over as he pulled old bandages away; there was a faint flinch from Chrome, a small, sick drop at how bad it all looked and what a mess it'd made of her, tinged over with faint shame and a much clearer sense of disgust/"I'm hideous". He noted the injuries, but didn't look away or take any more issue with them than as injuries, holding a tiny tug for her to stay where she was, stay watching and aware, and that it wouldn't interrupt him any for her to continue the 'lean', something with more solid words; " _They're wounds; they'll heal, and you are not hideous._ " She was still fretting over it, flinching away from the words; he added one last thing - " _It will be fine, my cute little Chrome._ " 

Her reaction to that was more confusion than comprehension, words and ideas like that being something new and strange to have applied to her; but it was enough for her to settle back to watching, if fretting unhappily under the quiet occasionally. 

He didn't bother with quite as much of distancing his awareness of the body from its sense of pain as he could've; antiseptics and cleaners were of little consequence and a tiny thing in the face of what he'd grown used to, a common spot of unpleasantness. There wasn't anything too bad in terms of infection, a few minor spots of irritation and one beginning of something that was easily drained and cleaned around the stitches; the patches of skin scraped off in the impact were still raw, and there were a few cases where he had to juggle a couple illusions for mirrors to see what he was doing and abusing vines to reach where it would be awkward to handle. It was healing, and he'd made sure they had some supplies to change bandages to have a more mundane cover, but it'd be a while before it was really safe for her to be functional without the full extent of the cover illusions. 

He'd barely gotten things covered again and Chrome's clothes mostly back on when the door blew open to Ken scrambling in on all fours, growling and agitated, voice raised. "Hey, I need to talk to - " 

Mukuro only really had to look over for Ken to stop, well aware of the difference in body language.

"Boss, we've got problems."

"Oh?" He glanced up, only briefly, as he moved to pack away the medical supplies. Chrome's jacket was over the couch he'd normally used to rest, boots next to it; at least he'd managed to get mostly dressed again otherwise, luckily for Chrome's nerves. 

"Remember the guys in the black and silver uniforms?" Ken was shifting, running claws against the floor in agitation; he nodded to Ken, filling Chrome in with a brief flicker of an image - the three of them a few years younger, all wounded, Mukuro's perspective off a bit and wobbly thanks to a good crack to the head, with a slightly battered but less hurt Lancia sitting in the entrance to the old cellar they'd holed up in, a mental footnote of fifteen of them dead but not easily. 

"There's like, thirty of them in town, an' they're doing this rotating patrol thing where I keep having to dodge them when I go out… and there might be more coming." It was somewhere between an annoyed whine and a serious territorial affront of anger, with something behind the agitation; the last time they'd run afoul of the Varia's agents, it hadn't really gone that well.

And of course, knowing who led the Varia… the one eye narrowed. "I don't think they're here for us; or rather, they have no way of knowing we're involved - they're likely here for the rings and the Vongola successor." 

Ken growl-whined. "So what, we're getting drug into their stupid fight?"

"The less they realize we have something they want, the better; keep avoiding them, and don't interfere or let them see you until I give an order otherwisse. I'll handle anything we need to do about this; it is in our best interests that they don't win this." Tsuna he could either get another crack at possessing or have an opening to get leverage otherwise, as well as some measure of protection to hold off pursuit; what he'd seen in Italy so far, even if Varia men hadn't shown up at first, was enough for him to suspect that Xanxus would be ….

Less than ideal for their plans, and lacking the sympathy Tsunayoshi and the Arcabaleno seemed to have. 

He slid Chrome's coat back on, and sat on the couch, pulling her boots on. The head of CEDEF had said something about a challenge; from the sound of things, there hadn't been any such official thing - a plan of theirs, or something about the internal rules of the Vongola that hadn't been invoked yet? Either way, he would need to set up one other thing, sliding a bit of power down and around the lines to all three of his people there, a mask that would obscure and misdirect anything trying to detect or find them. 

"So what do we do for now?" Ken had settled back, perched awkwardly in the best imitation a mostly human frame could do of sitting back on haunches. 

"Are any of them coming into Kokuyo?"

Ken shook his head, hunching his shoulders with a growl.

"Then we keep out of their way; if you can keep track of their movements without being seen, it's useful, but if you're unsure, 'not being seen' is more important than 'having details'. I'll tell you when it's time to fight them." 

Ken just nodded, with an unhappy rumble low in his chest. 

He waited until Ken had left to go hunting to fold up the now somewhat stained sheet he'd used for a "clean surface", moving it aside to deal with later. Then, he slid control back to Chrome, sitting on the couch to make sure she had an easy time dealing with suddenly having to keep balance and bearings. He was initially intending to see if there was anything he could learn about the Varia, but that got put a little further off in the day; the first thing Chrome did was nudge out of her boots and tip over, curling up into a ball in the pillows and cushions on one end of the couch, mind a mass of rattled bleeding jagged bits, renewed awareness of her injuries tipping over domino-chains of other old patterns - worthlessness, being a burden on others, being unwanted, isolation.

He wasn't entirely sure how to deal with any of it, but it was obviously a bad time to step out; she was small, compassionate to the point of self-sacrifice, and the amount of abuse she'd been through didn't really help his jags into hatred of most of humanity for its immense talent for baseless cruelty. He stayed put, winding around the wadded up mental mass of hurt as best he could, nudging things in here and there - she was _needed_ , was likely giving them the only chance they'd have, and was the only one that could do it; the only thing giving him a break from the water prison, much less any semblance of freedom to do anything for all of them, and by his estimate of things, was the opposite of hideous compared to the people who'd use someone like her as a target to abuse and discard. While she didn't reject it, she wadded up tighter on the couch, wrapped around one of his pillows and sobbing into it, letting go of some of her own strain to pretend to hold stability and letting him support all the bleeding little jagged bits. Mukuro couldn't quite tell how long she stayed there, but it was at least a couple hours during which he'd stayed still, keeping the same set of projections up internally for lack of any better idea what to do, the physical sobbing accompanied by a sort of mental "bleeding all over" that probably only compared to lancing some kind of ancient and long-septic infection to drain. 

It did, eventually, die down, the draining slowly settling out of a mass of active hurt to just dull, numb exhaustion. She was still curled into a ball on his couch around the pillow, but it was turning into less of a tense knot, the exhaustion spreading physically. The one thing that didn't really relax was her clinging to the pillow, as if it would somehow serve as a physical surrogate for him, a vague wish that she tried to hide from him as soon as she was aware of it, shoving it aside out of a fear of bothering him with it, fear of rejection, fear of burdening him; she wanted him to go do what he had to do, and was trying to screen things so he wouldn't be aware of what was still leaking in the hopes that everything would look alright and normal, a strong sense that Mukuro and his agenda were supposed to be more important than anything to do with her. There was a faint, out loud, whisper of "Thank you, Mukuro-sama."

Humans were confusing, and while he was managing to follow most of it thanks to her not hiding it nearly as well as she hoped - granted, it'd be hard to do with how he was still meshed that closely - it didn't really make it make any more sense beyond 'there's a lot of old hurt'; it was like her psyche was teetering around with all the clarity of a badly wounded animal trying to gnaw its own legs off. It was better than it'd been earlier, yes, but it was still a mess.

It still didn't seem like a good idea to leave her like that, as much as he wasn't sure what to do to fix it. He curled closer, nudging more of a sense of presence in. " _It will be alright, my Chrome - I'll teach you more tonight, so that you can be strong enough to help us more, but for now, you should rest._ " That last part was nudged along with more of an imperative, a push for control, a command to _sleep_ ; if she was aware of it, she didn't resist it at all. As she dropped off, he took a moment to grab at the fragmented memories he had of the gardens of the Sixth Heaven, tugging her into that; as good as she was at making her own internal constructs, he didn't trust her subconscious to hold those right now, and holding her in something of his making would at least hopefully prevent some of the nightmares he'd caught edges of once or twice since he'd found her. 

He had a few people he'd tagged that were earmarked as pure "trojan horse" hosts; people with enough ability to be dangerous that he could jump into for the sake of wreaking havoc on wherever they ended up, violent enough that they'd end up somewhere else that he'd target. It'd worked in the past a few times; wipe out part of a group, leave one of the competent ones wounded, but alive, let the rest of the Family or some allied group take that one in as their own, then use that to find and destroy the others, sometimes even getting a chance to repeat the cycle with a new mark. 

Three of them had ended up serving the Varia. He didn't push at all, merely listening in on the line, passively aware of the thread to listen for what they were seeing and hearing. 

One was en route to Japan, on a small charter plane with a few others; they were still slipping their people into Japan.

The other two were nowhere near the main Family headquarters; he was growing more curious about the politics and who their allies were, that the majority of the people involved in the quiet takeover there weren't Varia subordinates. Instead, those two were at the Varia's base, stationed guarding the castle; he got to watch a few hours of standard routine, tail ends of practice, a patrol of the walls and an assigned wing, part of the unit settling for a meal.

That, at least, got him part of his information; not all of the small talk was anything useful, although from the sound of things the Varia owned the area around their castle as much as the Vongola did, but it was less inhabited, with further to go to reach a town. 

That was the useful part of a stretch of time when he was beginning to seriously ponder if he could sneak a Suggestion in without being noticed to change the subject, as he had a distinct lack of interest in any discussion of local girls a few of them were interested in and that one of the others in the unit was 'living dangerously' trying to flirt with some girl that was a squad leader under one of the other Varia units. He did not need to know about the cute blonde girl in the village, or the brunette that was probably a 'real tiger' in the sack, or about the squad leader's ass that she'd probably skin you alive if she caught you looking at. ~~He did, however, thoroughly endorse the unknown lady skinning them alive by this point. Their hides would make a nice rug and a good warning to others.~~

It was mercifully distracted by a lament about how they couldn't really make plans with everything on high alert and no clue when or where they might be going, and further lamenting that even with the higher-ups gone somewhere, if they so much as thought about stepping out on 'guard the base' duty, no matter how boring and empty of anything that'd threaten the castle it was, they'd probably end up being volunteered for Belphegor's target practice or something. It was hard to tell if the one that said that was being sarcastic or serious, but he didn't seem more afraid of the idea than would usually be warranted by any typical military 'do that and the brass will kill you'… then again, the Varia were a several notches lower on the sanity scale than any military he'd dealt with, it could just be sense of normalcy coloring their reactions. There was a vaguely useful rumor that apparently Xanxus had been snarling around the base in 'the worst mood anyone's seen in years' before leaving.

A similar listen-in check at least was enough to confirm that no, the Varia leadership hadn't gone to the headquarters; on the list of Things That Would Make Xanxus Unhappy, he was pretty sure the ring pieces he and the others carried were near the top, and with the Varia already building a foothold, it seemed safe to assume that Xanxus and the others were incoming. 

He was going to have to make sure to reinforce with Ken and Chikusa to lie low.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mukuro's day starts bad and doesn't really get much better - time spent "resting" in the Vendicare, followed by a glimpse of the Mosca.
> 
> I get to add phobia trigger warnings! \o/ Eye trauma and needles in the early part; Mukuro having leaking flashbacks isn't pleasant.

For all that he didn't have much to do with his energy besides the hopping between hosts, it did get tiring, to the point that even doing more than maintaining Chrome's organs would get taxing; as much as it was more comfortable there, it was her body and not his own. The nature of the tank made the jump a little easier, but didn't remove the fact that he was still tied to his body.

The fluid made it nearly impossible to hear anything other than maybe muffled white noise from the machinery, an effect that blurred out of anything meaningful; there wasn't really much to even be aware of there other than the weight of chains, the occasional shifting of metal, the clamps that latched into his skin around his eye holding what seemed to be some kind of suppression device in place, moments when the movement of the fluid slightly shifted the needles in his back. The lack of anything else made it all too easy to be hyper aware of the restraints, 'rest' more a matter of waiting for his reserves to rebuild while trying to find something to occupy his mind in between fitful attempts at sleep. 

Dozing off was the worst part, when he managed to not quite have the mental energy for enough wakefulness to keep some control over where his mind was going. Somewhere in between unconsciousness and the jarring moments of awareness of needles and restraints, things leaked through, the blank spots being filled in with something equal parts memory, dream, and hallucination; black ink that wasn't quite ink being etched into his skin, injections that burned through his veins, early stints of being just drugged enough to lower resistance to whatever it was; cold to the point of everything going numb, everything going dark and empty. Straight incisions, lines carved open for various prodding, the clawed attachments over his eye blurring into different metal arcs reaching deeper to pull his natural eye out.

There was nothing to keep track of time; eventually he'd "rested" enough to start clawing out of the haze with his reserves recovered, tugging apart old injury done to a much smaller frame from the Vendice's restraints, tracing back from the restraints to the present, from the prison to the one lifeline out.

Chrome stopped still at whatever she'd been doing with the renewed awareness of his presence, still silent from old habits that clung around him, the Paths and everything that'd come since stitched-together patches of flesh over a rebuilt and artificial skeleton. She set the cardboard she'd been working into something aside, meeting him with concern and a smush between "what happened", "are you alright", and "how can I help". There were a few moments of numb quiet as he processed, a brief and uncomfortable relapse where the concepts and basic emotion were so alien that they may as well have been written in Swahili and waved past his face in smoke.

He hated being reminded of what he'd been.

She stayed still, waiting for him to collect himself and trying not to broadcast worry, even as she was picking at the hem of her skirt. He wasn't sure what he wanted, multiple impulses at once - something truly stable, security enough to curl up and collapse, none of which was possible; a sickening revulsion at that desire, tension, a need to do something, to have a target to tear apart until the agitated energy was gone. 

He managed to give her a mental wave to give a moment - a signal that all he really needed was time; she settled, accepting that as something like a sign things might be okay soon, and waited.

Mukuro went over what information he had, tracing out the pieces for options, directions where he might be able to move something; there was a small mental note that the sun was setting outside. The Varia proper would be in Japan by now, along with their weapon -

A weapon that'd been shipped in pieces with special requirements. If they could find it before it was assembled and activated - 

He had a target; he flagged Chrome with a request to warn Ken and Chikusa to be ready in case he needed them, that he'd be using her as an anchor, and then he dropped down the Paths to shift out and find it, a haphazard chain across the city of birds, stray cats, dogs, rats, flickering through things the animals saw to locate where the Varia were, likely places to hide it to put it together, anything to find it before it was built and get rid of it.

He managed to narrow down, settling into herding a stray cat investigating a likely area; there was a scent trail, something off mixed with metal and machine oil, with hints of gunpowder and other fuel.

It took a bit of work to convince the cat to go further that way, instinct wanting to go the other way from something that would usually be dangerous; he'd managed to get a little closer to the doors of the warehouse - the open doors - when the cat froze, scrambling back to the wall, tail straight out and fur on end, scrunching small against the building at large, heavy footfalls. 

It was huge, broad, and moving at a normal calm walking pace, the face of the machine covered with something modeled on a gas mask; the cat scrambled to hide under an old dumpster as it passed by.

He was too late; it was already active.

It stopped, and the cat flattened more into the ground; turned, the head pivoting to look direct at the feline. He wasn't sure what it was picking up on, but went into masking EVERYTHING; there was nothing there, no cat, just bare concrete, nothing, no scent, no bits of power.

The head moved to sweep sideways as if scanning the area, and the machine turned in a short partial circle to continue that inspection. 

"Moou…it's a cat." 

The cat's first instinct at the voice was to bolt, he managed to push that into "HIDE MORE", and it scrabbled back closer to the wall away from the small figure that was looking under the dumpster; a body and frame that didn't look older than two at the most, wrapped in black robes and most definitely not acting like a child.

The machine stopped, head turning to focus on the Arcabaleno, who had mercifully deemed the cat not worth further attention and was now studying the machine curiously; there was a tiny, faint buzz, barely audible to the cat's ears, and the Arcabaleno put a hand up to some kind of earpiece under his hood; there was a faint hint of another voice, but it was hard to make anything out of the other side of the conversation, other than that it sounded angry.

"Yes Boss? ………I was just checking on something to make sure the concealments were solid. ……………out by the warehouse. ……….Well, I can't hide something when I don't know what I'm hiding." A small, irritated shift of weight, as a frog hopped down from the Arcabaleno's shoulder to peer under the dumpster curiously; thankfully the cat was too far in "OH GOD I'M GOING TO DIE" panic freeze to think about it as food. "Yes Boss. …..I'm already half done. ……Can't Levi do it himself? - oi, alright, no need for that. I'll get going. ……..Yes Boss. ……..Right. I can wait, but you know it'd be easier for _me_ the sooner I know, right?" While the voice on the other side went quieter, the Arcabaleno winced. "Yes Boss. ….No, that's all." 

The call ended, and the Arcabaleno gave a last, sulking look up at the Mosca, then turned to walk out of the alley, the frog returning to its perch on his head. 

Mukuro let go of the cat, picking up on it deciding that "somewhere on the other side of town" was a good place to be as he was leaving; he couldn't really blame it.

Chrome was sitting on his couch; she'd gotten the trident and was holding onto it like a lifeline, Chikusa leaning by the wall silently while Ken was pacing the floor. Mukuro tugged a request for control, and Chrome stepped back to let him take over.

"We're too late."

Both heads shot up to focus on him at the change in posture, going from hugging the trident to leaning on it with shoulders hunched, and the change in voice tone. 

And neither of them had a clue what he was talking about, Ken speaking up for both of them. "Late for what?" 

Mukuro sighed, scrubbing Chrome's face. "Something I'd hoped to destroy before it could be used." 

Still slightly blank looks, though more warily grim now.

"I suppose I should explain what we're getting into.". He waved a hand, and the floor in front of him turned into a partial map. Italy was on one side, little replicas of the Vongola base in North Italy and the Varia's castle on its hillside in the south; on his other side was Japan, with Namimori and Kokuyo. Ken knelt at the bottom of the map, Chikusa walked over, tugging one of the loose chairs next to it, and Chrome settled in listening "behind" him. Mukuro added to the illusion, a chess-piece figure of the Ninth in the Vongola base, one of Xanxus from a photo on a battlement of the Varia's castle; another of Reborn, next to the Vongola base, and Tsuna, in Namimori. "There is a schism within the Vongola; the Ninth is old, and most of the possible successors were recently killed. He sent the Arcabaleno, one of his more trusted men, to Japan, to train and watch over the last surviving potential candidate that he favored - Tsuna." He reached down, moving Reborn's piece over to Japan. "The other faction favors the leader of the Varia, Xanxus, and is attempting a coup; a few days ago, the Ninth was kidnapped from the headquarters - I suspect I may be the only one outside of the culprits that knows of this; they have a double taking his place, and have taken control of the base." He reached down, picking up the Ninth's pawn, which vanished in his hand. "There is a set of rings that are the proof of succession; the rings are currently split in half - one set of halves was given to Tsuna and his people by CEDEF, including the one I have now." He held up the hand of Chrome's that wore the half-ring. "The other set of halves has been given to the Varia. Their allies control Italy currently, but Xanxus cannot take over without claiming the rings fully, leaving us a part of the obstacle to his succession."

"And we care why?" Ken was grumbling, poking boredly at the Xanxus-figure.

"Because our current bargain that is keeping the Vendice from sweeping in, and that might give me leverage in the future to build a stable power base to continue from, was made in secret with CEDEF and Reborn; if Tsuna is eliminated and Xanxus's faction takes over, we lose that leverage - and someone far more violent and 'traditional' will be in control of the most powerful Mafia family worldwide, giving us a much more difficult enemy to take down later." 

Ken grumble-growled, poking the pawn over off the model castle; it fell to the ground, and Mukuro gave a small nudge of will for it to tip itself back upright. "So what were you after that you couldn't get to?"

"There's an old weapon from World War Two." He paused; while Chrome was now listening raptly, Ken and Chi had both glanced up blankly, listening, but not following. Mukuro sighed, and the map expanded to cover most of the world, his models pertaining to the current day vanishing as relevant areas of the world were marked out blue for Allied and red for Axis. "About seventy, eighty years ago, for a decade or so, there was a war that involved most of the world; Italy was taken over by a dictator who was in an alliance of convenience with Germany and Japan, both of which had somewhat genocidal designs of conquest. The various Mafia families went different directions; the Vongola threw in with the Italian resistance to overthrow Mussolini." A model of the Mosca appeared in the middle of the map of Italy, which he gestured to, making sure it matched what he'd seen earlier in every detail he could think of - including scent; Ken putting a hand on the map leaning closer to study it with a sniff. "Mussolini's military began experimenting on those with Dying Will Flames, and invented a weapon - a machine, powered by a trapped prisoner's Flames, capable of leveling small towns. The Eighth Boss of the Vongola and her people brought it down, and kept the pieces in a locked vault under the headquarters; someone among the faction backing Xanxus refurbished the pieces and shipped them here, to Japan." The map under the model disappeared. "I had hoped to find where the pieces were stored so that we could do a fast raid, and destroy it before it could be rebuilt; unfortunately, it is already active and moving." He leaned his chin on folded hands, frowning at the illusion of it. 

"…So now what do we do?" Ken reached over to poke the Mosca model, one claw pushing the forehead to try and tip it over.

"I'll have to see. I found one of the Eighth's people that is still alive and willing to talk; he was there the first time it was destroyed, unless they've altered anything to cover old weaknesses. In the meantime, I may do some meddling, to see if it is possible to get the less objectionable faction moving." 

Ken made a low, unhappy rumble, clawbatting the model Mosca.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fishing for old war stories...
> 
> And Basil's amazing luck with drawing the short straw.

With the Varia moving, he spent the rest of the night lurking with Chrome; resting for part of the night, then when she fell asleep, more work on her skill with illusions - something he was not disappointed with, as he was starting to add increasing bits of resistance to her changing things and she was managing to push back, holding her forest against him. A little bit more, and he'd actually have to work at holding her off; it was completely honest when he told her she was doing well, and let go for her to get real rest while he went to get more information.

Time zones were an eternal annoyance; somewhere after midnight in Japan was seven in the evening in Italy, late enough that he had to keep an eye out for anyone that might notice a teenager not on their normal schedule. Renee wasn't outside, either; it was a conscious thing to act calm and distracted, not paying visible attention, as he waited for an answer to the doorbell - an answer that took just long enough for him to worry that someone had seen the old man as a threat, or that Renee had gone to poke and drawn the wrong attention.

The door opened, enough for him to enter, with a genial "Come in, come in."; Renee closed the door behind him, one hand occupied leaning on a cane. "Got through the war unharmed and all the aftermath, then I managed to go and wreck a knee getting thrown from a horse after I'd retired.". There was a short, wry bark of humor as he motioned for Mukuro to follow, leading to a living room with a few old cushioned chairs and a wood framed couch; a TV hung from the wall, the most modern thing in the room, beside a currently cold fireplace. Old photos and odd trinkets lined the mantle and hung from the walls, including a cord hanging beside the fireplace that had a couple battered metal skull and crossbones badges, and on the mantle above it, a sheathed dagger with a silver and ivory hilt and an eagle's head pommel, the scabbard battered with a burn mark across it. "The _Totenkopf_ badges are the better story; tank divisions get the best panics when "freak incidents" wreck their machines out from under them.". Mukuro looked away from the trophies with an eyebrow raised; that had been almost chirped from the couch where Renee had settled, smiling brightly. Mukuro didn't feel like he needed to ask; given a few tanks versus a prepared team with active Flames for power, he'd bet on the Flames any day. "Or was there another reason to drop by than old war stories?". 

"Actually it is a particular war story.". Mukuro sat in one of the chairs near the fireplace, hands folded in front of his face. "I tried to find where they'd sent the pieces, to destroy it before it was activated. I arrived just in time for it to walk out. I wasn't seen, and to my knowledge, they haven't struck... Yet."

Renee shifted, arm draped over the arm of the couch. "So you want to know how we killed it.". He sighed, looking up to the ceiling. "Well, we had other enemy fire going on at the time, so we were spread out. We ended up scattered more because it seemed to react to our Flames - it was firing at whoever was using the most power in its range, collapsed a building out from under Valeri so we didn't have cover fire until he could get to another perch that it wouldn't just blow up; apparently Clouds are loud or something. Morris managed to get it going in circles dumping power into simple constructs so it was chasing will'o'wisps. That bought us time to clear out some of the crossfire, Daniela and Henry went for it while the rest of us were dealing with the rest of the assault... Took a barrage for them to break it down, and I think Val got in a few shots, too. It was armored with something that made it resistant to everything we were throwing at it; the harder and faster you can hit it, the better." He waved at the dagger. "That belonged to one of the people behind the project, after we tracked him down to make sure there wouldn't be another one.". 

"Simple enough, at least, although it may be touchier if they've upgraded it to have a smarter control computer.". Simple but not easy; he could probably lead it in circles given a chance even if it had been given better criteria for determining targets - the night before it had likely picked up on the trace flame signature lingering on the cat, and it had distinguished between his signature and the Arcabaleno. 

"How practiced is your group with their powers?". There was a note of concern in the question, at which Mukuro found the pictures over the fireplace fascinating as he spoke.

"Tsunayoshi has been learning, and was able to take me down when I was cornered and out for blood."

There was a long pause, and Renee rubbed his face with a frown. "How old are you all?"

"Between thirteen and fifteen. There are a few younger that I don't think would be involved, and the head of CEDEF is around somewhere with at least one other agent and a sniper... And Reborn is present. There is some other outside support.". But not much, really, as much as he hadn't gotten a good chance to check what they had yet in more detail than Ken's bitching.

Renee just buried his head in his hands with a despairing mumble, most of which Mukuro couldn't make out besides that it was in French. He was grimacing and pinching the bridge of his nose still when that trailed off. "At least they've set them up with a good Mist Guardian... They did give you the half-ring, right?"

"... Yes; it's safe.". He wasn't near trusting enough to mention where, as harmless and helpful as the old man was. 

"Well, at least there's that." Which was still a statement of 'oncoming migraine'. 

Mukuro had noticed one of the photos - which seemed to be a group picture around a camp somewhere, looking more ragged and tired than anything that would be on the wall at the base; Daniela he recognized from a portrait in the headquarters, and she was one of the few things that would tell it apart from a picture of any random resistance or military between battles that era. There was someone with a dismantled sniper rifle that would be their sniper that took down the Mosca; a taller man in back with a deck of cards halfway to having his back to the camera, with someone leaning over his shoulder that was probably Renee when he was younger, and on the other side of Daniela, the other that stood out more was a small Japanese lady with a sword.

"Your Rain Guardian - was from Japan?" There was a line of possible connections he was pondering.

"Yes; her grandfather was the first, and she'd come to Italy from Japan with Daniela." Renee didn't seem to mind at all the less-dire subject change. "She'd go back and forth where she could after we all retired, for a good long time, then just settled in with her family there; we've been rather lucky that to my knowledge, none of us have gone down to anything more terrible than old age. As far as I know, they're still there; it's been a bit of a tradition that those families keep quiet, so some of them can get away from the insanity." 

Mukuro was pondering a few things that would take further investigation, and from the eyerbrow raise and small smile, he somehow suspected Renee had a guess. "Didn't the First have family in Italy when he retired?" Tsunayoshi was living proof that the man had apparently retired in Japan, and the Eighth coming to Italy from there furthered it. 

"Not that he was on good terms with; as Daniela told it, he'd started the Vongola as one of the little revolutionary groups during the Unification War, and they'd only ended up underworld because that's where they were kept the most busy as things stabilized - they'd started out fighting Mafia… so after the war, he had a lot of enemies, and apparently decided that staying in Italy would start more fights than it would settle, so he passed the rings off, left some of his Guardians in Italy to keep an eye on things, and went to Japan, out of reach of it all." Renee shrugged. "At least, that's how I'd heard it." 

Mukuro was pondering that one; they had to've had more to it for there to be the second through seventh bosses occurring over a span of thirty years. Before he could ask, however, there was a spike of something over the link - not Chrome trying to get his attention, but Chrome burning power and definitely upset - something wrong at home. He wasn't even conscious that the "Chrome?!" had ended up out loud before he ditched host, leaving Renee with a very confused and somewhat alarmed teenager sitting in his living room.

Before there could be much question, Renee rolled his eyes and reached for the cane, pre-empting the inevitable questions with "Let me get you a drink. You're going to need it."

What Mukuro got when his attention focused on Chrome was a few pillars of fire in the old theatre, with a boy backed up against the far wall looking very alarmed, curved blades out and in his hands but held up as if trying to make a point of not attacking. Chrome was definitely alarmed enough to keep adding more fire to that side of the theatre until the intruder left; the boy wasn't in a Varia uniform and was flattening against the far wall, which had Mukuro wondering who the Hell had decided to walk in. 

_You've done well, Chrome; I'll handle this from here._ There was clear pride in that; she'd taken his pillars of fire from the Hell dream and managed to make them real enough to be a weapon - maybe not as effective as something of hers, but more than enough to take down anyone not used to fending off illusions.

Chrome stepped back, nerves still rattling and with a lingering bit before she let go off the flame pillars, actually keeping a bit of will to keep an eye on what was going on in case Mukuro was threatened, something which amused Mukuro greatly.

He stood straighter in Chrome's body, trident held more loosely but ready. "Who are you and what are you doing here?"

"My name is Basil, I'm with CEDEF - you have my deepest apologies, Rokudou-dono, I'm just here with a message, I'd waited by the gate but there was no-one here and it was urgent - I did not intend to intrude!" And he bowed, much deeper than he really needed and enough that Mukuro was impressed he didn't end up off-balance.

"And what is the message?" He was still deciding what to make of the boy….and his incredibly archaic Japanese.

"That - there's been a decision to resolve the dispute over the succession of the Vongola rings; there will be a set of one on one battles for ownership of each individual ring over the next seven nights, and the side that claims the majority will win the challenge and gain ownership of all the rings. The … Cervello are determining the order of the challenges and serving as neutral oversight."

There was a name he hadn't heard before. "…Who?" 

The boy only shrugged. "They claim to serve the Ninth, and had a letter written this previous day disputing Sawada-dono's claim to the succession."

Which meant the fake Ninth, and therefore the faction that was backing Xanxus; he kept his expression carefully unchanging at that bit of information, as there was a flicker of movement off to the side - something small and dark. 

"I will be there when it is my turn, then; thank you for the message, you may leave now." The last part was very pointed, and punctuated with a sharp look when the boy went to say something; instead, he bowed and darted out.

"Sorry about that. I didn't hear about this until after he'd already left to bring the message." 

Mukuro just raised the one good eyebrow at where the boy had left, not even looking at the Arcabaleno. "CEDEF is supposed to be an intelligence and oversight organization, isn't it?"

"That's what they're supposed to do." 

"Then I take it they left their better intelligence people in Italy?" 

There was an awkward silence of the sort that did not help Mukuro's faith in his 'allies'. "He's been trained by the head of CEDEF."

He stared off into the blackness of the doorway. "…Did the Head of CEDEF teach him Japanese as well?"

"…Yes." Out of the corner of his eye, all he could see of Reborn's face was the hatbrim.

"…And he's being trained to be an intelligence and oversight operative."

"Yep."

Mukuro stared into the darkness more, expression flat as a metal table. The Head of CEDEF thought it was a good idea to teach someone who was in a position meant to be capable at information gathering, which usually implied blending in, to speak three hundred year old archaic Japanese. "…I see that I'm going to be kept busy." This might explain the relative lack of interference he'd seen in Italy so far, as well. "When is the Mist battle?"

"We don't know; apparently they're going to start announcing them one at a time at the first battle."

He finally glanced down to Reborn. "Have you ever heard of the Cervello?"

"…No." There was a distinctly uncomfortable shifting of weight. "And this isn't like the Ninth."

"No, I imagine not." Another moment of staring into the darkness, tone and expression flat; the hat tipped up as Reborn studied him, clearly thinking over something. Whatever conclusion he reached, he went back to leaning on the wall with the hat back at a normal angle and a much more relaxed tone. 

"Sorry for the interruption; I'll make sure the rest of them are keeping our side of the agreement in the future."

"For now I'll chalk it up to the current state of affairs; while this wasn't exactly an emergency, if he had stayed hanging around the gates and was seen, it might have drawn the Varia's attention here." After all, the Varia's pervasive patrolling was why Ken wasn't within Kokuyo's boundaries to notice the intrusion. 

"Thanks for that. I should get back to Tsuna; I'll make sure they leave it to me to contact you if something else comes up." Reborn tipped his hat, and Mukuro gave a distracted nod in return as the Arcabaleno left. 

He took a couple steps back and sat heavily on the couch, frowning, half leaning on the trident still; then stepped back to curl up in the back of Chrome's mind so she could take back over, mentally muttering about what a mess they had to untangle, and giving a small nudge for her to go ahead and go back to sleep; he could keep a corner there to take a few hours to think on what he'd learned and decide what direction to take next.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And then Mukuro decided to be a bit of a little shit at CEDEF, and almost got shot by Lal.

His eventual conclusion was that the most glaring holes in his knowledge were closer to home; what else was around him that he might have to account for in his own tenuous allies, and exactly what the situation was with CEDEF.

The first, and easiest, to pursue was probably tracking down CEDEF; after a few hours and enough rest for Chrome to be up to it, he nudged for a mission - something that got a small nervous flutter and agreement to go; he kept up his own masks on their energy and blocks on any other detection, allowing Chrome to handle concealing their presence to more normal detection. It was early hours when they reached the Sawada home, with no sign of Tsuna or Reborn; he nudged to meddle in Chrome's illusion briefly, flagging her attention to watch what he was doing as he shifted it so that she'd be visible from the house, but not to someone outside of it, and added a layer to hide anyone leaving the house. 

It at least didn't take long for Iemitsu to leave the house, waving cheerfully as he walked away up until the door shut, at which point Mukuro nudged for possession, but carefully passed off to Chrome control of the bubble that would prevent anyone else from seeing or hearing them. 

"What is it?" Given the glance between him and the house, Mukuro had a good guess that Iemitsu was less than thrilled to see him at home, as much as he was keeping a neutral and more businesslike expression.

"I just wanted to ask about how things were going in Italy, since that's where Xanxus is going to be getting his support, and I'd rather like to be prepared for any potential… dirty tricks." A category that started with a certain nine foot tall mechanical war crime, but definitely didn't end there. "After all, you've been diligent enough in removing any potential hosts I might have in CEDEF that I'm rather blind that direction." Not a lie; all of his potential hosts in CEDEF had suffered some kind of 'accident' or another, and it wasn't a foolish thing at all, considering that any survivor of his massacres would be a potential leak to someone familiar with Mist flames. 

There was a pause, a momentary blink that was _fascinating_ ; so Iemitsu didn't know about the last few years and someone pre-empting any interference in CEDEF. "We're already on things in Italy."

"Then you have an idea where the Cervello came from?" He didn't really expect an answer, but how the lack of an answer came might be a clue. 

"We already have someone tracking that down." Someone wasn't having a good day; but how much of it was the lack of information, and how much of it was his mistrust of Mukuro?

Mukuro smiled mildly, tilting his head as he looked up - not caring about the height difference between Iemitsu and Chrome's body. "You really do hate me, don't you?"

Iemitsu's face went harder, more humorless in ways that shouldn't have been possible. "Do you even remember how many people you've killed?"

He shrugged smoothly, relaxed and unconcerned. "I lost count somewhere; I suppose you would happen to know?"

"Three hundred fifty six confirmed, anywhere from forty to eighty more that we're not sure on, over eight years and most of Italy. You're in a category normally reserved for war crimes."

 

Mukuro leaned on the wall by the house casually, the corners of his mouth quirking. "And how many people have you killed, Vongola? What's Reborn's record? Xanxus? How about your founders, how many did they kill to carve out a place and hold that village?". Iemitsu's glare narrowed, something that only seemed to amuse Mukuro more; he glanced at the door to the house, gambling a few guesses on things he'd overheard, patterns he'd caught. "Is that why you put so much effort into keeping your family oblivious - that they might find out about the dark side of your work?"

 

"Your agreement is to protect Tsuna; Reborn seemed to think you might actually keep it.". It was too flat, seething somewhere under the self-control. "If you harm Tsuna, I will personally see to it that they cut off your ability to sneak out like this. If this is all you came here for, then I have other, _useful_ things to be doing.". 

 

Mukuro smiled, offering a small wave, and walked away himself without looking back to see if Iemitsu was moving himself.

He stepped back once Chrome was back in Kokuyo, a small note that he would be back later and encouragement to practice left with her. He didn't so much directly move into another host as skip between, glancing at where they were until he found one that wasn't in a position to be watched too closely - outside the compound. 

He knew where Xanxus's allies had their cordons; according to Ken, there were probably only a few CEDEF agents in Namimori - which meant they were probably active in Italy, but he'd bet any people they had inside the headquarters had been among the handful of "disappearances" that had happened over the last few days, setting some of the more attentive residents on edge. 

That left outside surveillance; there weren't any buildings outside the old wall with a clear view of more than the wall, the village too small for a good vantage point on that side. That left the lightly forested hills around the old fortress, and a bit of more mundane stealth getting around a patrol that was walking the hill in and edgy routine. 

There was a harder to get to ledge with dense underbrush, one that took a bit of ensuring the patrol was out of earshot before he could get down the gravel drop-off to it without being too exposed; if they were going to have someone watching the headquarters, that's where he'd look. He pointedly let the more dramatic visuals slip as he ducked into the copse of oversized bushes, right eye red and black lines running across the face of the young man he was using.

There was a brief awareness of something feeling off - someone else's illusion shifting, and then he was nose to muzzle with a light rifle, aimed upwards from a very low tripod mount, a visor on a very small and unamused frame behind it. "Rokudo.". 

Another Arcabaleno, her voice barely a whisper with an extra hint of irritation; he held his hands up, bare and open, with a nod. The effect masking her presence wasn't a strong one, but it was enough to cover some sound, bubbled out around him.

"What are you doing?". As dangerous of an edge as her voice had, it was incredulous irritation, and he suspected she likely could've just shot his host if she'd wanted.

"Touching bases; after all, I do have a vested interest in how this conflict falls."

She frowned, but lowered the rifle, sitting back in the middle of a ring of tools - binoculars, a few other variations thereof, a distance listening device... He'd found his surveillance agent. "Can you get in?". Curt, professional, and calculating, punctuated with a small head jerk towards the building.

"Only to a limited extent.". He settled himself, sitting cross-legged, hunched a little to be sure he wouldn't be visible if her screen faltered. "What hosts I have, have limited access right now; it's been a challenge to glean much useful."

"Then you have intel.". She was studying him still, guarded, but still a better reception than the others - the short statement a clear prompt, testing.

He gestured to the fortress, gaze wandering to the lit windows visible through the shrubbery. "They've had it since the night I was contacted; it was very quiet, very smooth, and mostly seems to be people that were already there - the existing security and some recognized authorities. The uninvolved people are uneasy, restricted, and some suspect something is more wrong than they're being told, but as far as they know they're under an emergency lockdown after an attempt on the Ninth's life."

The Arcabaleno considered this, not taking her eyes off him, but after a thoughtful silence she scowled and looked toward the building herself with a quiet " _fuck._ "

The test passed, he took a moment to take better stock of her camp - and a camp it was; a camouflaged small tent tucked away, stashed containers and a stray dark green foil packet - military field rations; it wasn't new, either, the dirt and gravel of the hillside already settling on the tent. She'd probably been out there for a day or two already.

Four or five people at most in Japan, one on surveillance duty, maybe eight disappearances inside that he'd guess for CEDEF.... "If I may ask, where is most of your manpower? I had thought your sparse presence in Japan to mean more of your weight was in Italy, but..". He was cautious himself, the question a tripwire. "I admit, my knowledge of your movements is limited - the few potential hosts I had that ended up with CEDEF all had 'unfortunate accidents' quite soon after their assignment.". Respectful, careful, and unbothered, but he was curious how she would react.

The response was a deeper scowl, her eyes not leaving the building. "Survivors from the massacres, right?". There was frustration, but it was distracted; not happy with him, less happy with something else. He nodded, and her frown twitched as she went silent, half-mouthing something in thought a few times - never more than a syllable. "Goddamnit."

Mukuro tilted his head; it wasn't something she'd been behind, either - there was a tension where he wasn't registering as a threat. "The movement on the headquarters... It does not match what I remember from the outside of what it looked lie when the Varia moved."

"Levi squad, sixth team, no survivors." It was clipped, rhetorical confirmation that he'd gone against Varia subordinates before. "And no, Mammon squad does more field intel and tracking than long term undercover, and half the people coordinating the headquarters have been there longer than Mammon Squad's stably existed.". 

"When did they start gutting CEDEF?". It was tentative, and he lowered, shrinking into his shoulders as he asked. 

There was a sharp, sideways glare, and he put his hands back up, drawing back; she he'd it a few seconds before grumbling something and returning to glowering at the fortress. 

It was a clear enough picture; the external advisory organization gutted and blinded, the heirs besides Xanxus all dead, a quiet, inside job hostile takeover, a lack of eligible Mist users to tag for Tsuna; and on the other side, an attempt at secretly grooming an outside heir, with "Guardians" pulled from a rag-tag mess of a mostly similar age group from directions that wouldn't be watched, most of them not even from within the organization. 

There was a chess game going on, a long one, and more hands on the other side than Xanxs himself - if Xanxus was even a player and not a king piece with delusions of grandeur. 

"You are the strangest Mafia I've ever seen; war and street orphans picked up by the underworld usually don't end up in orphanages being taught to make a tradition of rescue cases.". With a noted exception for the other side of the board right now, who were all too familiar, if more subtle ad careful than usual. 

She shifted, giving him a long, unsure and studying look. "And I'd thought Buddhists were pacifists.". He blinked, a guileless look that earned a disbelieving snort. "You're an Italian with a 'name' that sounds like something a morbid Zen priest would take up on entering the monastery. I thought going that far into the practice meant bans on killing."

He smiled, less innocently but more amused. "Which is compassion - to stand by and do nothing while someone spreads suffering and misery to many without any accountability, or to cut off the source so that they cause no further harm to others and can start over with the lesson for their next life?"

The visor obscured part of the face she made, but from the way her frown flattened and widened, he suspected there was a prayer for alcohol involved; she shook her head, and finally went back to watching the building. "Your targeting needs work."

"I was eight.". His tone was about as casually dismissive as if it were spilled milk; a faint shift betrayed her watching him sidelong, studying him again without turning to look.

Whatever she was thinking, she seemed to decide it wasn't urgent, finally dropping watching him for a ... Mostly calm and worn assessment. "So we've got an inside job situation that's completely compromised and controlled by hostiles that'll get confused with friendlies who're probably prepared for us going in hot or cold, and hoping for an excuse to make us look like the hostiles.". The scowl returned. "And they're either overconfident or not planning on backing down quietly if Xanxus loses."

"Well, I do suspect Xanxus may be planning to cheat.". 

That was more of a bit into a lemon face, followed by "Why does he even-", "Told them to just let me shoot him", and a tiny incoherent rage noise. 

"Does that come as a surprise?" He left behind fishing there, slightly less of his usual mask; he knew he was on thin ice, and if he could coax out a little bit of a return on the information exchange beyond the stories he'd overheard in the headquarters, it would be worth it. 

Her tiny nose wrinkled in irritation and disgust. "Not really, but in this case, it's more overkill than usual for him." Mukuro settled with his hands in his lap, listening; there was a tiny movement to telegraph a flicker of a glance. "Xanxus is one of the most powerful Flame users in the Family, with a team made up of all the people too batshit-insane to keep anywhere normal but too talented and skilled to get rid of. He's up against a bunch of half-trained thirteen year olds, and you're the only one I'd bet on put up against any of the Varia." She was objectively grim, tactical assessment. "Right now the 'luckiest' break I can imagine is him picking up the ring and it deciding to disagree with him as hard as it disagreed with the Fifth." A questioning headtilt; she made a small face, thinking, before she continued. "The rings are alive. The Fifth went too far out of line one too many times, and the Sky Ring torched him; the less dramatic accounts say there weren't even bones left. Not sure Xanxus is far off enough to piss it off, but it rejecting him would answer the whole argument real fast." 

Mukuro nodded slowly, picking up his own faint frown; too much he needed to catch up on about the situation, and as much as the fight in Italy would affect the fight in Japan, he needed to get a better idea what the tactical situation was back in Namimori for that side beyond "Tsuna and some others with a few CEDEF vs. the Varia and the Mosca". "I may have to counter-cheat, if I can manage such without alarming your boss." There was a faint nod to that and a funny small snort. "I get this odd feeling he might not like me." His voice tinged with badly feigned innocence, and she looked over with enough sense of an eyeroll in her expression to cover for the dark visor hiding her eyes.

"You were near the top of our list of 'things to swear massively about' for eight years, then you terrorized his son, attacked the kid's school, and put half the kid's peers and friends in the hospital, therapy, or both. I think you made him a little jumpy about you." There was too much tired sarcasm for hostility. 

Mukuro shrugged, and the Arcabaleno shook her head. "That is a dangerous job to be acting on impulse and emotion." 

There was another quiet pause, another small shift to keep him more in her peripheral vision, before she settled on sarcasm as the answer. "Show me someone who never does, and I'll show you the last of the secret musical rainbow unicorns that barf happiness." Then, after a pause. "And if someone says they're completely immune to it? They're a delusional idiot." 

Mukuro pondered for a while, giving a little more time on some sound to make sure the patrol had gone by again; he gave a faint bow as he stood to leave, answered by a dismissive handwave from the Arcabaleno.


End file.
